Sandy Rodriguez

April 2024

Through research of Mexican and pre-Columbian pigments and materials used to make paintings, artist Sandy Rodriguez shares the breadth of her work at the intersection of history, social memory, and contemporary politics. – Cantor Arts Center

March 2023

Keynote: Looking Back to See the Future: Remapping the Colonial Archive

ALAA Triennial Conference: Encounters with the Archive in Latin American and Latinx Art, Museo Franz Mayer, Mexico City, Mexico

October 4, 2022

Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute, in collaboration with the Denver Art Museum, hosted a virtual exhibit and panel discussion on Traitor, Survivor, Icon: The Legacy of La Malinche, which explores the role of La Malinche from a feminist perspective, challenging the traditional view of this historical icon as a traitor. The event, which is part of the Mexico Institute's "Engendering Safety: Addressing Femicide in Mexico" initiative, will begin with a presentation of the exhibit followed by a panel discussion on its implications and significance in the modern context of rising femicide rates in Mexico.

Published August 29, 2022

Global Cornell: From Invasive Others Toward Embracing Each Other Keynote

On April 28th, 2022, artist and researcher Sandy Rodriguez gave a keynote presentation reflecting on her artistic practice and insights on her three-week residency at Cornell and Rocky Acres Community Farm. Meeting with multiple partners across the university and community, as well as Indigenous knowledge holders, Rodriguez shared her prolific and on-going Codex Rodriguez-Mondragón (2017-).

She visited Cornell University as part of the “From Invasive Others Toward Embracing Each Other” research project led by an interdisciplinary team that includes professors Ananda Cohen-Aponte, Ella Maria Diaz, and Jolene Rickard. The project is supported by Migrations: A Global Grand Challenge, part of Global Cornell.

Published Aug 10, 2022

In Conversation: Contemporary Mapmakers

Presented in conjunction with the Mixpantli: Contemporary Echoes exhibition, In Conversation: Contemporary Mapmakers surveys works of contemporary artists, Sandy Rodriguez and Mariana Castillo Deball, who take inspiration from the Indigenous cartographic traditions of the Americas, challenging existing narratives about place-making and belonging in both Mexico and Los Angeles. Moderated by Dr. Diana Magaloni the Deputy Director, Program Director and the Dr. Virginia Fields Curator of the Art of the Ancient Americas as well as the Suzanne D. Booth and David G. Booth Conservation Center Director at LACMA.

March 3, 2022
Sandy Rodriguez, Pigments from Indigenous History @ Rio Hondo Live from Rio Hondo College, Sandy Rodriguez is a Los Angeles-based artist whose work investigates the methods and materials of painting across cultures and histories. Sandy will discuss her process and the science behind making her own natural pigments from minerals, plants, and insects using Indigenous recipes.

December 16, 2021
Sandy Rodriguez’s YOU ARE HERE / Tovaangar / El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles de Porciúncula / Los Angeles is a multilingual map of the greater Los Angeles area, representing the topography, language, flora, fauna, and land stewardship in the region over time and illustrating the movement and histories of peoples who have called—and continue to call—the area home.

This work is part of “Borderlands,” a new permanent collections installation at the Huntington that explores a more expansive view of American art history.

https://www.huntington.org/videos-recorded-programs/you-are-here

November 16, 2021

Imaginaries of LA: Umar Rashid and Sandy Rodriguez

The third conversation in our Imaginaries of LA series brings together artists Umar Rashid and Sandy Rodriguez. They will discuss how interweaving histories, cartographies, and cosmologies helps us see the stories of conquest, violence, and survival that constitute Los Angeles’s past and present in new ways.

September 8, 2021
Sandy Rodriguez Presents at the 2021 Creative Capital Artist Retreat

As human rights abuses in the United States become more extreme, particularly with Latinx communities on both sides of the US-Mexico Border, Sandy Rodriguez performs interdisciplinary research on recuperating Indigenous knowledge systems like plant-use and pigment recipes. Book 13: After the Conquest – Codex Rodriguez Mondragon will expand this codex of research through an immersive multiroom installation, presenting field study, archival research, project development, and the production of new works to provide a space of healing and visual possibilities for current and historical traumas.

Learn more: https://creative-capital.org/projects...

August 16, 2021
You Are Here: A Work In Progress from Sandy Rodriguez
Sandy Rodriguez, a Los Angeles-based artist, is creating new work for The Huntington. The piece is called "YOU ARE HERE / Tovaangar / El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles de Porciúncula / Los Angeles." It is a multilingual map of the greater Los Angeles area that represents the topography, language, flora, fauna, and land stewardship in the region over time, illustrating the movement and histories of peoples who have called—and continue to call—the area home. Support for this project is provided by an anonymous foundation, Carl and Sue Robertson, City National Bank, and the Decorative Arts Trust.

August 12, 2021
Joshua Tree Highlands Artist Residency Artist Sandy Rodriguez, 2020-21

April 17, 2021
Visiting Artist Sandy Rodriguez visits Art 382: Art and Social Justice as part of the Begovich Gallery Lecture series. Sponsored by CSUF College of the Arts and facilitated by Director of the Gallery, Jennifer Frias and Assistant Professor of Art Education, Mary Anna Pomonis.

Feb. 24, 2021

Founders' Day Lecture - Mapping and Memory: Activating the Huntingtons’ Collecting Legacy
Dennis Carr, Virginia Steele Scott Chief Curator of American Art gives brief remarks before being joined in conversation with artist Sandy Rodriguez, 2020-2021 Caltech-Huntington Art + Research Fellow. Together, they reexamine the Huntington family's legacy and interest in the Spanish-speaking world and pose possibilities for how The Huntington can expand the stories represented in its galleries and exhibitions. Founders' Day is observed annually at The Huntington in honor of Henry and Arabella Huntington's roles in envisioning and establishing the institution.

Premiered: December 15, 2020
Artist Sandy Rodriguez and UO’s Latinx Scholars Academic Residential Community students in a Q & A. Generous support for this project was provided by Art Bridges, Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art.

October 14, 2020
"States of Mind: Art and American Democracy" Featured Artist: Sandy Rodriguez
Hear from “States of Mind: Art and American Democracy” featured artist Sandy Rodriguez as she talks about her work “Mapa de Los Angeles: For Those Killed by Police in 2018” (2018). The exhibition, which reflects on some of the most pressing topics facing American democracy, is timed to coincide with the 2020 presidential election in order to encourage dialogue around current social and political issues.

February 12, 2019

Artist's Talk: Sandy Rodriguez presents "Codex Rodriguez-Mondragón"

Los Angeles–based Chicana artist Sandy Rodriguez visited the CSRC to discuss her recent work "Codex Rodriguez-Mondragón," a series of bioregional maps and paintings. Rodriguez replicated pre-Columbian pigments and paper to create the series, which explores the geography and current political climate of the US Southwest and Mexico. The project is a response to the Florentine Codex, a sixteenth-century ethnographic study of Mesoamerican culture and history compiled by the Spanish Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún. Rodriguez discussed how her project was conceived and how politics, botany, chemistry, interdisciplinary collaboration, civic engagement, and art history all had a role in its creation. A related limited-edition catalogue with contributions by Charlene Villaseñor Black, Ella Diaz and Ananda Cohen-Aponte, Adolfo Guzman-Lopez, and Todd Wingate was available for purchase. To learn more about the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center, visit www.chicano.ucla.edu